Devil May Cry 5

is the upcoming fifth installment of the main Devil May Cry series and the sixth installment overall. The game was formally announced at E3 2018 during the Microsoft Press Conference. Set after the events of Devil May Cry 4, the game follows Nero as he fights off a widespread demon invasion, all the while looking for the cloaked figure who took the Devil Bringer, before Dante’s return from the demon world. It is set to release on March 8, 2019.

Development
When presented with the choice of making a new game, Hideaki Itsuno thought about making a new Dragon's Dogma game instead of a "Devil May Cry 5". The game has been in development since at least 2014, one year before the Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition had been released. Itsuno had been working on the game since after DMC4:SE was finished, and the full development team was formed in 2015. Itsuno from the start had a concrete vision of the game: Three playable characters, Nero as the protagonist, and the game starting from the loss of his right arm.

During its developmet, there was friendly rivalry between the Devil May Cry 5 and the Resident Evil 2 remake teams, this lead to both teams working their hardest so they wouldn't "lose" to the other.

About a month after the game's announcement at E3 2018, Famitsu released a magazine that covered the development of Devil May Cry 5, in it, it was stated that the game was 75% completed.

The game runs on the RE Engine and uses photorealistic graphics, the developers scanned various models to give a realistic look to the characters and even real clothes which were created in London and scanned in Serbia. The team also traveled to various parts of London in order to create Red Grave City.



Making Nero's new jacket cost as much as a small car, however his accessories were not scanned. The Devil May Cry van took more than an year to make, the developers would even joke at the van feeling like a character due to how much time they spent on it, additionally, the writing on the van is the artist's own handwriting, including the neon sign.

For the character expressions, Capcom used the latest facial technology developed by the Serbian company called 3Lateral, the movement in the game uses motion capture and after that's done, the voice actors record their lines based on the existing video, which makes it easier for them to understand the character's emotions.

With the development of Devil May Cry 5, the timeline of the series was retconned to have Devil May Cry 2 take place before Devil May Cry 4.

Plot
A few years after Devil May Cry 4, Nero has his own branch of Devil May Cry. He must fight off a demon invasion in Red Grave City after a demonic tree takes root with help from his arm mechanic, Nico. He is also chasing after a man who severed his arm - the Devil Bringer.

The invasion begins when the seeds of a "demon tree" take root in Red Grave City. As this hellish incursion starts to take over the city, a young demon hunter Nero, arrives with his partner Nico in their "Devil May Cry" motorhome. Finding himself without the use of his right arm, Nero enlists Nico, a self-professed weapons artist, to design a variety of unique mechanical Devil Breaker arms to give him extra powers to take on evil demons such as the blood sucking flying Empusa and giant colossus enemy Goliath.

Gameplay
The gameplay revolves around three playable characters; Nero, Dante and the newcomer V.

To replace the Devil Bringer, Nero wields a cybernetic prosthetic called "Devil Breaker" with many of the same moves as its predecessor, as well as several additional abilities. The first arm Nico makes for Nero, the Overture Devil Breaker, looks plain in style allowing Nero to wear it inconspicuously throughout the city, but the hidden electric generator inside is strong enough to shock any demons that come too close. Adding a bit more versatility, the Gerbera Devil Breaker generates an intense heat that can be shot out as a highly powerful shockwave which can be used as a direct attack, reflect enemy projectiles, or even to propel Nero through the air and augment his evasion capabilities.



Along with his signature blade Rebellion, Dante now fights using 2 new Devil Arms, a pair of chainsaw-like weapons that can combine into a motorcycle, named 'Cavaliere'. And a weapon made of Hellfire called 'Balrog' which forms gauntles and greaves. The weapon has two modes, one focusing on kicks, and the other focusing on hard punches. Additionally, players are able to choose what weapons they wish to bring into a mission similar to Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening, or they can simply bring them all at once. He also has acquired a version of Lady's Kalina Ann made by Nico that allows him to use all the moves Lady could with her own rocket launcher. The Cerberus Devil Arm he acquired during Devil May Cry 3 also returns with two additional modes.

V is incapable of engaging in melee combat and instead summons familiars and casts powerful spells in battle.

The soundtrack in the game changes based on the player's Stylish Rank, as the style rank goes up, the chorus of the music will start playing.

Within the game, players can encounter Divinity Statues, which act as an in-game shop. Orbs can be traded in. Players can spend real-world money to purchase orbs.

Pre release
Upon its announcement at E3 2018, the game received positive response from the fanbase. The feedback towards the game's demo shown at various game conventions was also overwhelmingly positive.

The E3 trailer's theme song, Devil Trigger, which is also Nero's main battle theme in the game, reached the number one top song in the United Kingdom's iTunes. Dante's equivalent, Subhuman, had a generally negative reception from fans, its official music video had a high dislike ratio before it was eventually deleted from the official DMC YouTube channel.

Following Gamescom 2018, Devil May Cry 5 won the "Best PC game" and "Game of the Show" awards from DualShockers.

After TGS 2018, Devil May Cry 5 won the "Future Division" award from the Japan Game Awards as well as multiple awards from DualShockers including: Game of the Show, Best Xbox One game, Best PS4 game and Best PC game. However, on September 22, 2018, one day before TGS ended, a GameSpot article reported that the game would have microtransactions, this caused concerns from the community, even after producer Matthew Walker responded to multiple questions over the matter on Twitter and a DualShockers article made clear how many Red Orbs the player is able to earn through natural play , many fans still remain skeptical about how these would be implemented in the final game.

On September 2018, Devil May Cry 5 was the top pre-ordered game on the PS4 and the 4th game at the global top seller list on Steam.

On January 2019, the Devil May Cry 5 Xbox Exclusive Demo had a 4.4/5 score on the Microsoft Store, with 74% of users giving it a perfect score. A month later, when the multiplatform demo was released, players quickly realized that the inertia element present in Devil May Cry 4 was gone, which caused some controversy within the community. Users frustrated with the change started tweeting under the #DMC5Inertia hashtag in order to raise awareness.

Before the game was officially released on March 7th-8th, 2019, reviews from multiple sources were posted on the internet with high scores. The game's Metacritic rating was 88 at the time (Xbox One version).

Post release
Shortly after its release, Devil May Cry 5 was the top watched game on Twitch. In addition, its launch on PC (Steam) was the second best for Capcom after Monster Hunter: World, surpassing Resident Evil 2 (2019). The game had a 77K concurrent player count at the time, with Monster Hunter: World having more than 300K concurrent players at one point after its launch.